Use this aptitude line to find out about all packages that are:

1. Automatically installed
2. No package depends on it (ie, they are in your computer because someone recommended it).

aptitude search '?and( ?automatic(?reverse-recommends(?installed)), ?not(?automatic(?reverse-depends(?installed))) )'

I've finally gotten around to getting my own domain name (DDNS) and setting up a 24/7 server at home. I installed a postfix mail server, but every now and then I get a message like this after trying to send e-mail:

host gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com[209.85.163.27] said:
    550-5.7.1 [201.222.xxx.xxx] The IP you're using to send email is not
    authorized  550-5.7.1 to send email directly to our servers. Please use
    550 5.7.1 the SMTP relay at your service provider instead. n29si1594017elf
    (in reply to end of DATA command)

Damn gmail... do I have to change to an ISP that doesn't host that many spammers??

Today I uploaded my packages for BTG and Rasterbar's libtorrent to BTG's web site. BTG is a BitTorrent client working on top of (evidently) Rasterbar's libtorrent. The cool thing about it is that it works in a client-server model: there is a daemon, and there are 4 clients you can use to connect to it. This makes it very interesting for use in a home network: leave bittorrent running in your headless server, and connect to it via one of the interfaces: cli, ncurses, gtk and web-based.
What makes this double-interesting is that these are my first library and multi-binary packages, and that I setup a non-trivial signed repository on btg's ftp site. The public key is public_key.asc visible in the repository's root, and has an md5sum of 00f252f6c6da68f32972750db70ff262.

Now the only thing left is to get someone to sponsor it into Debian.


In an utterly, completely unrelated note, I can put html when in BBCode mode in here... which is really cool! Now I can use html and don't worry about those tedious <br/>

This was funny. While browsing OSWeekly suddenly a popup asked me to find out more about the Linux Operating System using Microsoft Live search.
Kind of ironic, isn't it?

I've been thinking of writing apt-listreadme. It is basically the same as apt-listchanges, but it would list readmes instead of the changelogs. So it would have to extract both debian and upstream's readmes (obviusly this could be configured), display them (through less, a web browser) and/or mail them to someone. I have to consider also if it makes sense to write a new program instead of adding to apt-listchanges (which seems much more logical).
The idea is that whenever installing *new* packages, the readme should be shown, as I usually never read them and it is useful to read them. Obviously they shouldn't be displayed when upgrading or reinstalling a package.

I've recently been given a new keyboard, an EZKey EZ-7000. This looks like a nice keyboard (yeah I like lots of buttons), but I haven't got it working completely yet. I managed to get most buttons working, but I seem to have lost the function keys (fortunately I still have F1 and F7 (actually F6 sends a F7), so I can switch to at least one console and back to X). I've been trying to find out how to map the keyboard keys to X keys, and haven't had any luck. It seems like xkb is the way to go, although it seems like it might be a full year before I even understand what the hell I am supposed to modify/create to get it working.

PS: I just now discovered that this keyboard wasn't that good after all: to make some "shortcuts" it assigned several keys different values than usual: so pressing F2 will get a CTRL+N sent instead, which is the default for bold typeface in windows+spanish (which is the drawing on top of the key), pressing F7 will send CTRZ+Z, which is the undo combo... damn keyboard, I think I'll have to ditch it unless I somehow manage to override the behaviour.

So I finally got around to installing Windows (I haven't had Windows installed in about a year). Since I already had a working Debian install, I just installed Windows on an empty partition. I usually do it the other way around, but of course I wasn't going to reinstall Debian to use my usual approach. After the windows install, I found myself without grub in the MBR. This was totally expected, and one of the reasons I usually install Windows first. Recovering the MBR was far simpler than expected. I just popped in the Debian Etch installer, right after boot got to a terminal (Alt+F2), and did the following

mkdir /mnt/temp
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/temp
mount --bind /dev /mnt/temp/dev
mount --bind /proc /mnt/temp/proc
mount --bind /sys /mnt/temp/sys
chroot /mnt/temp
grub

When grub loads, I then did the following:

root (hd0,0)
install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0) /boot/grub/stage2

Then rebooted, and got a grub console instead of my usual grub screen. No problem: just do

configfile (hd0,0)/boot/grub/menu.lst

and the usual interface is up.
After my desktop loaded, I found the grub-install command that would do a better install than me:

grub-install /dev/sda

And then I had a completely normal boot screen. I just had to add the new Windows entry to menu.lst and I was set.
So there goes the ancient fear that installwing Windows after Linux is a pain. There are, of course, cases in which it is a pain (I remember once windows messed with my partition table and linux wouldn't boot), but this time I had absolutely no problems.

--
Felipe Sateler

My computer was running fine, save for the fact that the cpu ran at 1500+ speed instead of 2200+, which it should. Googling around I find that my CPU has a 266MHz FSB. So I shutdown, enter the BIOS, and set the FSB frequency to 266MHz (it previously was 100). Save, reboot, and... BOOOM! The computer wouldn't turn on again. The status leds got stuck in the "System Power ON" state, which means, according to the MB documentation, that the CPU is either damaged or not properly installed. Resetting the CMOS didn't help.
I thought I had burned the processor, but after installing an old MB the computer powered up just fine! However, I will need to buy either a SATA PCI controller or a new MB, because the old one doesn't have a SATA controller.

I've been in a sequel of failing hard drives that is making me sick. About 3 or 4 months ago my primary hard drive died. Well, not exactly: it started making clicks, and after a while I got a BIOS warning about an inminent drive failure. The drive was somewhat old, and had been used a lot, so I just thought it was time's fault. After that, I got a new hard drive, which managed to fail in a record (at least for me) time of about a month (the same simptoms as above apply). So I thought "Well, there must be something wrong with my hardware". Replaced the motherboard and power supply, and just a couple of days ago, I bought a new hard drive (this time SATA), and installed it. However, I am hearing the clicks again. I am baffled at what could this be. I moved the computer away from magnetic sources (such as speakers), and the clicks continued. I changed the electric setup, and the clicks are less numerous now. I rearranged the setup again, so I hope this will kill those damned clicks once and for all. I just don't know what to do.

We had a bit of a reordering at home, and I ended up far away from my router, so I have to (at least for now) connect wirelessly to it. The problem is that my wireless card is an USB DLink DWL-120+, which happens to not work on my computer. After installing the Windows driver and getting internet access, I started googling around, and found that there is a driver for it, the acx100 driver. After downloading all necesary stuff, compiling and installing the drivers, messing with the necessary firmware, all of this offline (I had to reboot to Windows several times to download extra stuff), I was able to configure the wlan0 interface.
However, I haven't been able to connect reliably to my router. Most of the time it can't get an IP address from the DHCP server, and when it does, it manages to bring down the router, thus bringing the complete LAN down. I am trying to work this out, but it is very cumbersome, since I don't have internet to google around for information, or post on the user forums for the driver (this is very irritating, since I need to post driver output for the post to be useful, and I can't really copy it by hand).
My plan is to place a wire across my place to forget about wireless networking. The other option is to place a temporary cable so I can debug the wireless driver without having to reboot. The first option seems like less work, but I guess the second option is the better in the long run.